Design and implementation of a snapshot ptychographic wavefront camera array

We describe and demonstrate a ptychographic wavefront camera array for snapshot complex field estimation. A 2-dimensional diffraction grating in the entrance aperture enables programmable overlap between the effective apertures of the 3×3 camera array. We estimate the amplitude and phase of the entrance aperture field by iterative phase retrieval constrained by the array images. We present experimental results for several objects and demonstrate dynamic refocusing of the estimated field through two- and three-plane scenes. Multi-aperture ptychographic wavefront estimation primes future work on compact and adaptable ptychographic wavefront cameras for general or domain-specific applications like adaptive optics, interferometry, or remote sensing.